SCAMPER

Bob Eberle, 1971, building on Alex Osborn's brainstorming checklist (1953). Seven systematic transformations of an existing thing.

When to use

• You have a base idea and want variations cheaply
• Group brainstorming with mixed expertise
• Forcing breadth past the first instinct
• Teaching ideation

Don't use when

• Blank page — SCAMPER amplifies a base; doesn't generate from nothing
• You need depth in one direction (SCAMPER produces breadth)
• The problem is analyzing an existing system, not modifying it

The seven operators

S — Substitute. Replace a component, material, person, place, or process. (Steel→aluminum, scheduled meetings→async docs, human→model, recipe ingredient swap.)

C — Combine. Merge two things. Functions, parts, audiences, formats. (Phone+camera+GPS→smartphone. Memoir+cookbook→food memoir. Programmer+linguist→compiler designer.)

A — Adapt. Borrow from another field. (Velcro from burrs. Toyota's just-in-time from supermarket restocking. Graphic novel from cinematic technique.)

M — Modify (or Magnify / Minify). Change a property — scale, frequency, intensity, color, weight, shape. (Twitter that posts once a year. Novel as one page. Same content as comic, song, sculpture.)

P — Put to other uses. Use the existing thing for a different purpose. (Aspirin: pain reliever → stroke prevention. Blockchain: cryptocurrency → supply chain. Sweater: garment → kiln cushioning.)

E — Eliminate. Remove a component. Usually the highest-leverage cell. (Eliminate UI: CLI/API as product. Eliminate menu: omakase, single-dish restaurant. Eliminate explanation: Eno's Music for Airports.)

R — Reverse / Rearrange. Invert relationships, change sequence, turn inside out. (Priceline reverses seller/buyer. Wikipedia reverses expert/amateur. Memento reverses time order.)

Procedure

1. State the base in one precise sentence.
2. Run all seven operators. Don't skip cells. The cells you don't want to run are usually where the surprise is.
3. Read the seven. Most will be slop; one or two will be interesting; one might be surprising.
4. Take the surprising one and elaborate.
5. Discard the rest.

Worked example

Base: a web app that tracks reading progress across books.

• S: track your boredom, not progress — when did you stop and why?
• C: tracker + bookstore (already done; weak)
• A: gym-app habit tracking (slop; reading is not fitness)
• M: track only one book at a time, in extreme detail — every paragraph, every margin note
• P: not tracking your reading but tracking the book's — which paragraphs do most readers stop on?
• E: eliminate the tracking — keep the database of paragraphs as a "this is where I cried" annotation layer
• R: instead of you tracking the book, the book tracks you — delivers itself in chunks based on your demonstrated rhythm

Strongest cells: S, P, R. Elaborate P: a site where the unit of attention is the paragraph across the readerly population, not the book. Discard the rest.

Anti-slop notes

• Most common SCAMPER slop: "Combine X with AI/ML/blockchain/AR". Reject.
• Second most common: "make it a subscription" (business-model shift, not product variation).
• Surface 1–3 results to the user, not 7. The seven are internal scaffolding.
• Eliminate and Reverse produce the strongest non-slop output. Spend most of the budget there.

Source: Eberle, Scamper: Games for Imagination Development (DOK, 1971); Osborn, Applied Imagination (Scribner's, 1953).